Heroes Are People Too

I've always had a hard time articulating what rattles around in my brain when it comes to issues of military and war and the use of force.  Saying war does shitty things to "those other people" is fairly easy.  The hard part is understanding what we're doing to the war-fighters themselves.

Sending people to war is often itself the real crime.

From truthout:

"If someone orders you to kill someone else and tells you it's for a very, very good reason and you do it with the best of intentions but it turns out that you were lied to and actually killed an innocent person, then does that make you a hero, a murderer or a victim?" Haan says. "I know it doesn't make you a hero. I can't say if it makes you a murderer, but it definitely makes you a victim."[xxvii]